


no rain but thunder.

by Jolly Camaleonte (ginnyx)



Category: The Outsiders (1983), The Outsiders - All Media Types, The Outsiders - S. E. Hinton
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Everybody Lives, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-15 02:01:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29676699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ginnyx/pseuds/Jolly%20Camaleonte
Summary: "[…] and there was a wide gash from his temple to his cheekbone. He would carry that scar all his life."...which, in the book, means four months and a week.But not here. Not on my watch.Johnny Cade' scar, through the years.Seven different views.
Relationships: Johnny Cade & Ponyboy Curtis, Johnny Cade/Dallas Winston
Comments: 6
Kudos: 16





	no rain but thunder.

**Author's Note:**

> This all comes from the fact that I have a very strong protective instinct and reading/hearing a 16yo telling that he "doesn't mind dying" bc the lives he saved were more worthy than his? that those kids could do something with their lives.... implying that he could not??  
> JOHNNY. YOU ARE ALSO A KID.
> 
> So here I am: tweaking reality just a bit, so that kids could have time time to grow.
> 
>  **Content Warning** : canon typical violence (non descriptive), a dash of internalized homophobia (a single line), homophobic attack.
> 
> Do not worry, they will be fine.

**0\. Prologue**

Thesis:

_Johnny doesn't die._

So, no church burns.

_Still, someone watches the sunset._

So, no blood is found in the fountain.

_Still, a big brother hits his little brother for falling asleep in a lot._

Hence, Ponyboy is running –something awful in his throat— using all his dreams of tracks and teams to make his legs go faster.

Except that he _stops_.

He stops before reaching the point where he left his friend's sleeping form.

Pony is struck, standing still, 10 feet away from Johnny.

_Johnny, against a tree._

_Johnny, upright._

_Johnny, with a hand on his cheek._

For the first time, Pony notices how the night makes Johnny' scar turn pale white.

**Pale as Dallas Winston's fingers.**

~

That night, Ponyboy and Johnny don't go to the park; the Socs don't find them.

~

Bob Sheldon goes back home, as angry and drunk as he left.

But alive.

~

And Ponyboy… watches.

Watches his best friend kiss the coldest boy in town, and doesn't understand.

Betrayed –upset without understanding why— he also goes home and doesn’t let Darry hug him.




Johnny doesn't know his full first name (Jonathan?, _John_ athan? or… just John, maybe?), nor if he even has a middle one— but he knows Dally.

He doesn't pretend to always understand him, but he knows.

So, when his hero calls him out of the Curtis' house –in the back, in the half shadow of the night— and kisses him for the first time –fifteen and sixteen; first time ever and first time of some kind— Johnny doesn't close his eyes, but he parts his lips.

~

Dally is smirking, after –rubbing Johnny's chin with his thumb, gaze shifting briefly from his temple, following down his cheekbone, and then back on his eyes.

«I knew you wouldn't be afraid, not about this.»

Johnny clicks his tongue and the smirk becomes a grin, then a kiss.

«You wanna know why?», he asks against lips used to bruises.

«Yeah, Johnnycake, ' always wanna know,» his hero mumbles, fingers stroking the collar of his jeans' jacket –softly.

~

_(It's reverence.)_

_(It will come back time and time again between them.)_

~

«Because this world twists you in the worst possible ways, no askin'. But this, this twist? 'm choosin' it myself.»

And Dally's eyes shoot up into his.

~

_(Who said that devotion sounds right only in Latin?)_

**2.**

He is scared while he stabs the guy.

He can't stop shivering while the blood soaks the concrete, while the guy screams, screams, screams and clutches his thigh –shrilling high, his friends around him.

When one of them stumbles up, running to the car –Mustang, blue— Ponyboy's hand is already in his tugging onward, onward, without stopping.

~

Dally gives them money and a gun.

The first thing Johnny does with it is scratching absentmindedly his cheek, antsy.

Dally blanches.

«Don't make me give it to Pony, man – _and don’t point it at me either!_ It's loaded, for Pete's sake!»

**3.**

Johnny doesn't like the church that much, but he thinks that this is what theatre probably feels like.

Ashley could walk and cast a shadow against the wooden wall: fake, speaking with Ponyboy's voice— but real and _solid_ , if Johnny gives him the benefit of the doubt.

Something can be real even though false, if you are willing to accept the terms and conditions of his existence –no question asked.

And Johnny is ready to sign the deal.

~

He keeps listening and, when his head gets heavy, he props it onto his bended elbow and open hand.

Against his palm, his skin feels smooth all over.

**4.**

Johnny loves his friend so much: for the first time he understands the sunset.

He is sixteen and he got to have this.

~

He thinks _colors_.

He thinks _sunset, dawn, sky, gold_.

He thinks _Dally_.

~

He gotta tell him, that—

«It's bronze, now.»

«Uh?»

Ponyboy points with his chin, uneasy.

«Your scar. The sun— this light, it makes it look bronze.»

Johnny blinks, considering.

«Does it means that it looks tuff?»

~

Pony grins for the first time in three days.

**5.**

The sky is barely blue when a car screeches to a halt and Dally jumps out of it into their hide.

~

Ponyboy fakes sleep to catch them in the act again— but it doesn't happen.

It's just Johnny with his head resting on Dallas' shoulder; his cheek doing creases, only a speckle of white visible.

He is watching Dallas roll an untouched cancer stick through his fingers.

(Back and forth. Back and forth.)

Then, Dally's voice goes low, rough, _warm_.

«Johnnycake, you are _it_.»

And Pony flings himself upright and out of the hide.

~

(Their three heads go collectively red as a beet.)

~

The drive home is both full of relief –the survived Soc, the charges not pressed— and hostility.

~

(Ponyboy and Dallas will become truly friends 56 hours later.)

**6.**

After they grip him by the hair and make him watch the shiv edge Dally's throat, then the bow of his brow, down, down _("we should give him one too: they like to play matching set, right? for him and for her")_ — he doesn't cry.

~

He doesn't cry of relief when Two Bit hugs him –spinning, his bloody nose dripping down his collar— but he is glad that he's still down to hug, even if he now knows.

They all know, now.

Darry and Dallas get into a shouting match in the kitchen, and immediately Pony joins in, too.

Johnny lets his head hit the back of the couch that is more familiar to him than any other in the world.

Two Bit pets absentmindedly his head and mumbles something resembling a joke, but Johnny is too busy ignoring Steve ignoring _him_.

Then, Soda speaks up.

«It's gotten smaller.»

The puzzlement is such that even Two shuts up.

«Your scar, it's smaller now.»

And he smiles, like there is something to smile about.

~

(But it's Sodapop.)

(They smile back.)

~

Johnny also doesn't cry later, when Dally destroys half of their furniture –raging.

He stays put, curled up in a corner –afraid, but still watching.

Nowadays, not only he knows but he also understands Dallas.

That 'cold attitude' bullshit stands only when Dally doesn't care, because if he does— he feels everything, and then _more_.

~

(They are alike, same but different as it goes.)

~

Johnny knows intimately what it means feeling 'too much' and 'all the time'.

Dally still has to learn to handle it, in a world that's everyday fuller of things that he cares about.

~

He doesn't cry of exhaustion when Dallas finally drops on the floor near him –splinters on his foot— and asks

«Do you think we should stop?»

They are both looking at the destruction upfront; they don't really see it.

Johnny is so fucking scared, and yet it doesn't stop him from answering.

«No.»

And then.

«I used to think that I should have died before reaching sixteen.»

And then.

«I'm now _twenty_ , Dal.»

And then.

«Those fuckers gonna threaten us to do what? To steal the time this word never granted us in the first place?»

A shuddering breath.

«Not gonna let go.»

And to let him know that he means business, Johnny clutches his fingers, blindly, in his shirt –trembling but steadfast.

Dally lolls his head against his.

«I hate and love when you are more tuff than me.»

Their hands find each other, barely brushing.

«For a moment,» he continues, in a soft voice that from anyone else but Dallas Winston would be a whisper, «I thought 'let them', you know? Let them do it, let them brand me, let me match him. 'As it should be', I thought.»

He snorts, tired.

«But we don't need it, nh?»

And he clasps Johnny's hand, lightly, pressing it on his shirt.

«No need for that shit.»

Johnny swallows and turns to look at Dally's eyes, because he knows what's coming.

(And every time it's heart wrenching.)

~

«You are _it_ , Johnny.»

**7.**

At thirty-four –naked, on an unmade bed, at 4 pm, watching TV, bare back against his partner's bare chest, legs spread open, Dally's right hand cold against inner thigh— Johnny looks down where thumb is slowly, idly stroking the white streaks that have been there since the summer of his twenty-sixth birthday.

Those two strange weeks in which he had a sudden spurt and ended up 5 inches taller –Two Bit demanding a daily bulletin to keep up.

He observes them and thinks.

They aren't much different, are they? From the one on his face.

_(growth.)_

Then, Dally is putting a cigarette in his mouth.

**Author's Note:**

> If you ever find yourself regarding fear as a weakness, please think of Johnny Cade, who lived with fear till he died at 63.  
> He regretted some things in his life, but never life itself.
> 
> That said, if you are interested, here there are some notes:  
> 1\. I hope that it's clear that this is not some "scar romanticization" move. It's not. The final parallel was just a way of showing that life has forced him to grow fast, and that he did.
> 
> 2\. I'm bummed that I couldn't explore Dallas and their relationship more in this, so maybe Dally feels a bit flat? But this was about Johnny, and I have another fic in mind that it's more Dallas centric and deals with why he is so carefree the first time he kisses Johnny.
> 
> 3\. The Darry & Dally shouting match: listen, it's not that Darry is homophobic. He is not. He would never begrudge anyone for loving Johnny, because how could someone not love him, right? What Darry begrudge is putting Johnny in danger. So, even if not scripted, basically Darry went on Big Bro mode and lost his head, screaming at Dallas "what were you thinking! how could you put him in danger like that!" "fuck off, we were careful" "APPARENTLY NOT ENOUGH" aaaaand then Pony joins him, siding with Dally (of course). Yadda yadda, Johnny let them ride it out.
> 
> 4\. Bob Sheldon gets stabbed in the leg, survives, his parents yell at him... and he lives. He doesn't press charges because he asks his parents not to: he learns to ask for what he really want. Go to therapy, king.
> 
> 5\. "Because this world twists you in the worst possible ways, no askin'. But this, this twist? 'm choosin' it myself." ---- listen, I cringed myself writing this bc-- no, bb, please, you are not twisted, your love is not twisted. But it's the 60s and it was kinda ic to me that Johnny, with a fucked up life, would take being gay as "of fucking course, i'm fucked up like that too", BUT! But fuck the world, he will not passively accept it, he is choosing it, it's _his_. It's pride, for them it is. The most pride they can muster in those years.  
> 6\. Fuck S.E. Hinton


End file.
